Keyboard player Philip Woo and guitarist Ronald “Head” Drayton play off each other, while John Solomon’s fluid, underrated bass holds it all together. The opening Hey Uh-What You Say Come On is a chant over a driving rhythm with instrumental interludes. The more conventional ballad Keep on Walking follows a similar groove it can be seen as a direct influence on British funk ensembles such as Light of the World.Įlsewhere, the album is far from down-tempo. As the tempo seems as enervated as the sweltering day the song describes, Ubiquity’s massed vocals joyously state the obvious: “Folks get down in the sunshine / Folks get brown in the sunshine / Everybody loves the sunshine.” Few records make you feel so pleasantly exhausted. Piano dribbles out over lazy ARP synthesiser flourishes. Much of this was to do with its title-track, a woozy, off-kilter tribute to the summer. Unbelievably, Everybody Loves the Sunshine was Roy Ayers’ 14th album, but it was the one that really struck a chord in the UK. The outfit were square pegs that refused to fit in any holes that suggested straightforward jazz, soul or disco. Yet it was still in turns mellow and soothing. Details: royayers.By 1976, vibraphone legend Roy Ayers and his group Ubiquity’s music had become dirtier, funkier, and more repetitive. Roy Ayers tours the UK in August, starting at the Sunfall festival, London (12 August) and ending at the Moovin festival, Stockport (26 August). It’s 42 years since I left his band, but every time he comes to Tokyo, where I live, he invites me on stage and tells the audience how much he loves me. I never experienced this kind of thing again. After some shows, we’d have parties with local people and there’d be massive amounts of soul food. Roy would ask me to take care of his son or give me plane tickets to visit my parents. I’d no idea how special that was until I left. He used to invite people into the studio off the street, just to let them observe what we were doing. His mantra was: “The message is the music and the music is the message.” He’s not technical: he plays from the heart and that really speaks to people, which is what he is about. He thought musicians played better when they were tired, because they wouldn’t be thinking about anything. Roy would record after gigs, from midnight through to the morning. He had one chord, which he would move around all over the place, very intuitively.
There was no written music, scores or charts. He’d come in with an idea and just sing it or play it to us. It changed my life.Įverybody Loves the Sunshine was one of the first tracks I played on. It was unheard of for a band leader to pick up musicians on the road like that. They’d just lost a keyboard player, so I ended up playing the whole show, joining the band and moving from Seattle to New York. Do you wanna play?” I was a huge fan and knew all his music. Two years later, I went to see him again and he said: “Hey, I remember you. Roy was joking around and said: “Would anyone like to come up and play with us?” I raised my hand. I was just 17, still at school, and there were about 10 people in the audience. I saw Roy playing a jazz club in Seattle. Philip Woo, piano, electric piano, synthesiser Everybody loves the sunshine – except Dracula. People always join in and it’s been sampled over 100 times, by everyone from Dr Dre to Pharrell Williams. When he told me he loved my song, that felt pretty special.
I remember going to see The Wiz with him and the whole audience stood up: “Oh my God – it’s Stevie Wonder!” I had to tell them all to sit down and let him appreciate the show. In those days, I used to hang out with Stevie Wonder. I knew people would connect to it because everybody loves sunshine. The song's been sampled over 100 times by everyone from Dr Dre to Pharrell Williams I sang it with Debbie Darby, who we called Chicas because she was a fine chick, a good-looking girl who sang it so beautifully. We recorded it at night, so the sun was down, but the vibe in the studio was really nice. And I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound: a mix of vibraphone, piano and a synthesiser.
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